It is well known that consumers frequently associate certain snack foods and beverages with one another, and that consumers frequently consume snack foods and beverages in combination. For example, consumers might be inclined to eat peanuts when drinking beer, or to eat popcorn when drinking soda. To capitalize on this, the food and beverage industry has attempted to increase sales of both snack foods and beverages by tying sales of certain beverages to sales of snack food products that are often associated with those beverages. For example, the seller of popcorn might offer the popcorn purchaser a "cents-off" coupon that can be redeemed with the purchase of a case of soda, or the seller of peanuts might offer a peanut coupon to the purchaser of a case of beer.
Although this approach provides the beverage purchaser, for example, with an incentive to purchase the snack food, such an approach requires the purchaser to actually retrieve both the beverage and the snack food.
The extra effort required to locate the additional item, and then carry it or place it into the shopping cart is often just enough to discourage the purchaser from making the additional purchase. Even if the snack food item is placed in reasonable proximity to the beverage, the consumer can still be dissuaded from buying both the snack food and the beverage by having to pick up and carry more than one item.
It would be advantageous, therefore, to manufacturers, bottlers, and merchandisers of snack foods and beverages if products and methods existed that entice the consumer to purchase combinations of snack foods and beverages without requiring the consumer to select and carry separate items. Thus, there is a need in the art for apparatus and methods for packaging and distributing multi-pack beverage cartons and snack food containers in combination.